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The Bad
As most people post their best moments from 2024, I have the opposite story to tell. It’s a horror story on the one hand but a story of hope on the other. 2024 has been catastrophic for this site. But I’ve learned from this year that you can’t really know people until they’re tested. They can’t be tested until they must confront fear. Then, you will see who has character and who does not.
I did not know just how conditional most of my relationships were. Everyone has left this site. Every last person. Those who did the Oscar ballot, who wrote from other countries, who wrote about TV, or film reviews — even the person who called himself a friend for the last 15 years. Gone. That doesn’t mean all of those who left are enemies. Many of them are still friends. They just had to choose between that friendship and their own survival. They chose right. Their survival matters more and I do not blame them.
It was a rough year, though—I’m not going to lie. After Keegan’s article dropped, it was like that scene in Invasion of the Body Snatchers when the very last human being is spotted and must be singled out and ostracized.
I wandered around Telluride shortly thereafter with my guts in a twist, a terrified feeling I’ve never felt before in my entire life. Publicists gave me a big chill. I was disinvited from the Patron’s Brunch and screenings. They all just fell in line and did what they’ve always done amid a “cancel culture” outbreak. Even if it’s one of their own, it really isn’t. Ever see the great Black Mirror episode Nosedive? It’s kind of like that. It’s too bad Black Mirror isn’t that good anymore. Not even that show could survive the Great Awokening. What gets me is how the same people who write and direct movies, who pretend to stand up for art and freedom of expression, become fascist-like in moments of fear. And that is how they’re tested. Most fail.
The Ugly
They benched me at Gold Derby, and I was the subject of much gossip among the high society of Oscar blogging. They all believed I had wrecked my own career or somehow become radicalized, but none of that was true. It was never about what happened to me. It was about what happened to the Left. I did what I could to help take them out of power, and I have no regrets on that score. Hollywood would be well-advised to take that as a lesson that they, too, need to evolve beyond this moment and not be what they were for the past decade. It’s time for all of us to move on.
Everyone who used to write and contribute to this site is gone. They all packed up and moved. Every last one of them. It was like watching a herd of antelope evade a predator. Everyone just knew what to do. Poof, gone, vanished. Some of them did so nicely, making polite excuses. Others did so dramatically. In the end, they were looking out for their best interests. That’s exactly what I was doing, too – I was speaking my mind because I could not do the other thing. I could not lie. I could not be silent out of fear. I had to just do what I’ve always done, tell the truth, even if it gets me in trouble, which it often does.
I don’t blame any of them for leaving. But I will never look at many of the people I once admired, like Pete Hammond, or Anne Thompson. Tom O’Neil and others quite the same way again. I did nothing but advocate for them, sing their praises for years and years. I did the same thing with the studios. But Fear tests all of us. How we respond in the face of it decides who we are. And now I know. It was a hard lesson to learn so late in life.
Would I have done things differently if I could go back? Probably not. I believe in being as honest as possible and sooner or later someone was going to write that story. Rebecca Keegan just got to it first. She exists, as they all do, inside of a collapsing empire. At the time it made sense to keep purging the undesirables. But then Trump won, showing them all what I’d been trying to warn them about for years. That lesson will either be learned or it won’t. They can punish me all the want but they can’t fix who they are and what they’ve become.
Things have to change if Hollywood is to survive. There is nothing wrong with change. It’s painful and it can sometimes be traumatic but in the end, this is how we become stronger people. It wasn’t all bad either. There are some signs of life.
Now, the Good
The really good news is that one brave studio did decide to advertise, and for that, I am not just grateful, but I’m hopeful. That even one publicist had the moral fortitude to go up against the puritanical, judgmental scolds is shocking to me—all hail Focus Features. I hope Conclave and Nosferatu win all the Oscars. I will root for them all season.
My staff has launched a new site called The Contending, which is a one-stop shop for all things Oscars and Emmys. It looks like they will be just fine.
We canceled people or otherwise cast adrift outsiders and launched our own “Gold Derby” called The-GateCrashers. We see it as a way to bring back the fun of Oscar watching and free it from the groupthink and stagnation of what it has become. Whether we succeed in that endeavor, I do not know. One thing I know for sure is that the traffic on this website has never been as high as it is right now. I can be grateful for that.
And with that, AwardsDaily’s Top Ten Films of 2024
- Anora – Sean Baker takes on the Hero’s Journey with the character of Anora, a slightly naive sex worker who dances for tips. Her call to adventure comes in the form of a young Russian son of a billionaire who pays her a lot of money for her company and eventually proposes to her. She tries to resist the call — she’s a sex worker; what good can come of this? But then, she accepts the call. Why not, she thinks, why not the fairytale? She is swept off her feet with her part of the bargain to be his full-time wife, which isn’t that different from him paying her for sex. They have fun, but she gets something out of it. Maybe there could have been love — maybe. But it’s not long after that reality comes crashing through the fantasy, and the Russians show up to undo the marriage and bail out this reckless, loser kid from yet another disaster. Anora is the collateral damage.You’d think the story would end there, but Sean Baker will do that to us. He’s taken us along for the ride, and we will be richly rewarded by hanging in there and waiting to see what happens to Ani, a character we have come to care about. Lucky for us, there is one good man in the whole mess – a thug (Yura Borisov) who has taken a shine to Ani and becomes someone who sees her differently. It turns out it was a fairy tale, just not what Ani thought it would be. The film is not for everyone. If sex work bothers you, then you’ll want to skip it, but I found it to be pure enjoyment all the way through. It is fully alive. It tells the truth. There isn’t even a tiny bit of “woke” anywhere in it. It is the movie of the year.
Anora is a film that SAG voters should nominate for ensemble and lead and supporting performances.
- Conclave – even if Focus Features hadn’t shown up as the Deus ex Machina for AwardsDaily, this would have been my number two film mainly due to the singular performance of Ralph Fiennes, one of the best living actors who has never won an Oscar. He should have won for Schindler’s List. But here, Edward Berger keeps the camera on him nearly all of the time. It is a master class in acting that takes us through one person’s personal and spiritual struggle. Yes, I understand why religious Conservatives, Catholics, and others will be bothered by the film’s ending or even its treatment of religion. Still, I see it more as a metaphor for how systems and institutions can oppress the quest for truth. Gossip and power struggles lead to corruption. Even if the film’s twist ending seems to be wishful thinking by progressives (women can do what men can do), it is also about trusting your faith, the process, and democracy. No, it doesn’t necessarily shed a flattering light on the established order, but there is no denying that it is one of the year’s best films.
- Wicked – The film’s first half made me think I would not like the movie, but it pays off big time in the second half, largely due to Cynthia Erivo’s performance. But it isn’t just that. The film was based on a story written when it was cool to be anti-establishment. The film is about being an outsider, punished for not following the groupthink and status quo. And although many want to make it about the Right’s immigration stance, that is not what the story is about. It is about how hard it can be to speak up when all institutions force everyone to comply. Because if you’re flying solo, at least you’re flying free — right on. The film’s second half allows the necessary evil to emerge, making it all suddenly very exciting. That it was among the few films to make money is another reason to celebrate its success.
- The Substance – Coralie Fargeat is among the few directors whose visual style is on par with her many idols this year. She clearly loves Stanley Kubrick, John Carpenter, and other masters of the form, and it shows. She has studied their work, and it shows. But her work is brilliant on its own. It is the best kind of horror because it’s funny. It’s absurd. She found two actresses who were 100% willing to go along with wherever this crazy cautionary tale about aging and beauty took them. The end is over the top, but it’s supposed to be. It’s like the end of Django Unchained or Kill Bill, or even the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, where everything gets really bloody and really gross. Not everyone will go along with that, and it turns some people off. The point of it is that women are always taught to be reserved, especially where gross things are concerned. Teeth falling out, eating in excess, our body parts betraying us in old age – Fargeat sends it all up, getting it all out – the horrible and the miserable. It’s a work of pure genius.
- Juror #2 – Leave it to Clint Eastwood to make a movie this good, this watchable, at 94 years-old. How? I guess when you’ve made that many films, both in front of and behind the camera you learn a thing or two about a thing or two. Eastwood’s ace in the hole was the original screenplay by Jonathan A. Abrams, which absolutely should be nominated if the writers can get their shit together to recognize what is the kind of screenplay that used to be the backbone of nearly all of the best Hollywood films. The new trend of writer/directors who insist on coming up with their own ideas have led to some great films this year, but there is no denying the quality of a film that has a screenplay written with such care and precision as Abrams’ work on Juror #2. In a better Oscar year, this film would be among the strongest contenders but the bloggers and critics who cover and influence the Oscar race are the kinds of people who see movies like this as too conventional. People like me, the old timers, can see what we have in a movie like this and how rare it is. An A+ from Clint in what might be his last act.
- Hard Truths – It takes another vet like Mike Leigh to make such a strong film late in his career. It isn’t “woke” or dogmatic. It isn’t about racism or oppression. It’s just about people who happen to be Black living in the UK. One of them, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, is a truly awful person. She’s angry and she doesn’t know why. She is miserable to everyone around her and can’t control herself. It isn’t so much her emotional journey that keeps us watching, though Jean-Baptiste has delivered the finest performance of her career. It’s more about watching this ensemble live their ordinary lives, with wins and losses, heartbreaks and successes, love and laughter. You know, the full spectrum of human experience rarely afforded characters who exist only to check a box? Of all of the films I saw this year, this one has stayed with me. It’s not an easy sit, but I found it to be powerful and rewarding in the end.
- A Real Pain – I’m often skeptical of actors turned directors so I was dreading this movie. But I found in Jesse Eisenberg a good director and an even better writer. He knows these characters and he knows this world. That’s all it really takes to bring us into a story. Here, we spend time with two cousins visiting a concentration camp and how their lives revolve around confronting their past. It is ultimately about accepting people as they are and what a mistake it is to ever expect them to behave any differently. It might play nicely alongside a film like Enemies, a Love Story – how the past haunts us in ways we can’t even imagine.
- The Brutalist – it’s not exactly an easy sit, but it’s the kind of risk-taking and high ambition that means art is alive and well in Hollywood. As with everything else, I’d prefer the artists’ worldview was broader than it is – to always reduce everything to telling yet another story that is a thinly veiled attack on Trump is, by now, not all that interesting. But if you set that aside, as it isn’t a big part of the story, it’s hard not to be impressed by this massive film Brady Corbet made. It took me a couple of tries to finally get through it but when I finally did, all I could think was hats off, man. Hats off.
- Sing Sing – there is no way to watch this film without being moved by it. The prisoners whose lives are made better through art and culture is a great way to remember how badly we all need that in our lives, no matter where we are in life, and how keeping it from people only makes their lives more hopeless. The ensemble here is great, top to bottom. The score is deeply moving and Colman Domingo delivers a career best performance. It probably should be featured more prominently in the race but its buzz peaked too soon. It is, however, one of the best films of the year.
- Flow – most of the films in the animated race are great. They always are. But Flow is something special. It’s about a cat who joins a group of lost animals taking care of each other as a flood consumes their world. The animation is astounding and since there is no dialogue, it becomes a universal story about friendship and survival. And yes, of course, you can read climate change fear into it too – this is how we’ll survive, by sticking together.
I will walk away from 2024 a changed person, for better or worse. I hope for better. And I hope for all of you a healthy and happy New Year.
